POSSIBLE NUCLEAR TEST BY NORTH KOREA

Mushroom cloud KILOMETERS wide, crater visible by satellite, seen on Thursday, the 56th anniversary of N. Korea’s founding. Within hours this could be confirmed as N. Korea’s first nuclear explosion. This is serious, major bad news for Bush and for the world too: AP is all over this. Note the top story in the print version of the New York Times:

President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.

Update: BBC and Reuters also reacting to the original South Korean story, no independent stories yet besides that one just reactions